~ In a pile of papers, I found my mother’s x-ray images. And these words emerged as I approached a memory day.

Bone Maps

My mom’s
bones
glow through translucent glossy wax,
spaces frayed
by disconnection
a body attacking its own cells,
breaking down life force.

Picture stills won’t show
fractured
nerves
grasping for re-connection,
screaming out as protective surface layers

dissolve.

In the morning light,
holding onto the edge
of the illusionary reflection
like holding a piece
of her.

And I,
in the middle of the night
compare in awe my blue veins pulsing under skin,
contrast from the still blue
of blood cooled.

I have her creative yellow and orange paint brush
splashes
across a page,
blue and white speckled flowing dresses
dancing across air,
and inscriptions like hidden messages
on the inside of a book’s cover.

But I don’t have her bones.

Her rings won’t fit on my fingers.
I write words with my right-hand, and
she scribbled cursive with her left.

I threw her shoes away
as my toes would not fit
into her heels.

Her voice is silent.
And, I am afraid of my vocal cords,
sounds full of pregnant truth,
foreign
even to me
at times.

She felt me summersault and hiccup,
inside her belly
as I took life from her to make into my own,
a humble gift I will never pass on.

And yet,
I was born from her body,
cells
that still carry
her memories beyond breath.

~Megan M. Cutter